Letters (continued)

Milwaukee Redux: Finding Fault With a Voucher Analysis

To the Editor:

Alex Molnar's Commentary "Unfinished Business in
Milwaukee" (Nov. 17, 1999) is impressive but incomplete.
Admittedly, he provided a thorough study of the available data
regarding the success of these schools, made excellent suggestions for
securing additional data, and very appropriately recommended the
development of an evaluation plan acceptable to both advocates and
opponents of voucher programs. However, he made two large
errors—one by definition, and one by omission.

The flawed definition arises, at it always does in these
discussions, through the use of misleading terms. Referring to
"government-financed private-school-voucher programs" creates the false
impression that a voucher program takes government money to fund
private schools.

Vouchers do not take government money to fund private schools.
Public schools are funded primarily through property taxes. "We the
people" pay all taxes: It is our money. The voucher concept originally
involved reducing property taxes through a per-child tax credit to give
families a choice in directing their money to the educational
institutions they have chosen for their children.

The issue of choice leads us to Mr. Molnar's second error—the
error of omission. His concern for achievement data would have us think
academic achievement is the only criterion for discerning whether
voucher programs should exist at all.

As the principal of a Roman Catholic school (the country's largest
private school system), I can say that while superior academic
achievement is certainly a priority, it is not the sole reason we
exist. Our fundamental mission was stated quite clearly by the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1972 in its pastoral letter "To Teach
as Jesus Did." The threefold purpose of Catholic education is to
proclaim the gospel, build a Christian community, and serve the human
community.

This faith-based education is the choice many parents seek. They
want their children to be educated in schools that allow them to pursue
the religious freedom granted them in the U.S. Constitution.

The concept of a voucher is a response to two unasked questions:

(1) Has the government created a monopoly in education by requiring
children to attend school and then offering only one system for which
parents are forced to pay through property taxes?

(2) Has the state violated the constitutional amendment regarding
separation of church and state by discriminating against poorer
families who wish their children to have a religiously integrated
education by forcing them to pay for public education and thus making
it more difficult for these families to exercise their choices of
faith?

Educators must be diligent in ensuring that they act in the interest
of all children and not in their own systemic interests when lobbying
for or against voucher initiatives. Likewise, we must be more concerned
with changes that benefit students than with preserving the system at
any cost.

Christopher MariclePrincipal
St. John Notre Dame School
Folsom, Calif.

To the Editor:

Milwaukee's low-income voucher program is not capable of yielding
significant insights about school reform through school choice. The
expanded Milwaukee program still lacks virtually all of the key
elements of competition—universal choice, market-determined
tuition, and nondiscrimination by the government so that private school
students have as much public support as do public school students.

The Milwaukee vouchers only shuffle a few children among existing
choices. The effects of that aren't significant, and vouchers aren't
needed to compare the test scores of low-income private and public
school students. In addition, the only important message of such a
comparison is a reminder that a nation at risk needs to transform the
system and change the choices. As Mr. Molnar and many others have
pointed out, most private schools' test scores are comparable to the
public school scores that have made school reform the nation's top
political issue. The nation is at risk because the better schools are
still inadequate.

The time it takes to set up, run, evaluate, and act on a choice
experiment that tests market forces guarantees that another cohort of
children will reach adulthood without the skills they need. Real
competition—the reason we need universal, nondiscriminatory
choice—is already a proven winner. Education needs to join the
rest of the economy, where competition is the norm.

What is being revealed in Milwaukee? Families apply for vouchers if
they think their children will be more successful at another school.
The issue the data can resolve is this: Do applicants know their
children and the local schooling options well enough to pick the best
one? Most people would confidently predict a "yes" answer even if the
study weren't limited to applicants. Actually, they wouldn't see the
issue as important or controversial enough to demand a formal
experiment.

Except for the small size of even the expanded program that took
effect in Milwaukee in 1998, the focus of school choice studies should
be the school system, not voucher students. The claims of Milwaukee
public schools' improvement are not based on academic data, and no one
is studying the effect of additional money and academically deficient
public school students on Milwaukee's private schools.

America's unfinished business is extending freedom of choice to
every family, or if politically necessary, implementing it in one
metropolitan area first. Public support of education should not depend
on who owns the school (public or private) parents choose.

John MerrifieldSan Antonio, Texas

To the Editor:

Alex Molnar says that no one can say for sure how Milwaukee's school
choice program has affected racial segregation. He cites "missing" data
on this issue as a reason for more evaluation of Milwaukee's program
prior to expansion elsewhere.

In a new report, Howard L. Fuller and George Mitchell address
several questions that Mr. Molnar says no one can answer. Mr. Fuller
and Mr. Mitchell reviewed sources Mr. Molnar failed to take into
account, including the yearly census of all public and private
school-age children in Milwaukee conducted by the Milwaukee public
school system. The two authors also analyzed enrollment data from a
representative sample of private choice schools that participated in a
survey conducted by Wisconsin's Legislative Audit Bureau.

In a Dec. 2, 1999, editorial, under the headline "Diversity
Flourishing in Choice Schools," The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
called the Fuller-Mitchell report "well documented" and concluded that
Milwaukee's choice "program has enhanced racial diversity among
the city's students" (emphasis in original). The Fuller-Mitchell
conclusions are similar to independent findings in Cleveland by Harvard
University researcher Jay P. Greene. ("News in Brief," Dec. 1,
1999.)

Elsewhere in his Commentary, Mr. Molnar accepts at face value claims
by anti-voucher organizations that choice schools have violated program
rules in their treatment of students. He fails to mention that, to
date, none of the 8,000 choice students or their parents have claimed
unfair or discriminatory treatment. In fact, as recently as Nov. 17,
1999, at a public hearing in Milwaukee, officials from the Wisconsin
Department of Public Instruction said they were unaware of any such
complaint in the 10-year history of the program. Legislators repeatedly
asked choice opponents if their claims arose from even a single
complaint from a student or parent. Repeatedly, the answer was no.

While Mr. Molnar laments what he considers insufficient data on
academic achievement, he offers a telling clue as to the level of
scrutiny he regards as sufficient: He writes, "Rumor is that its
voucher students [at Catholic schools] are performing less well than
their public school counterparts." When did "rumor" become an accepted
substitute for actual evidence?

Mr. Molnar's overall theme—the absence of data—appears
to conflict with his July 1997 Education Week Commentary, "The
Real Lesson of Milwaukee's Voucher Experiment." Then, he was
comfortable drawing definitive, negative, and erroneous conclusions
about the choice program and several people who had evaluated it.

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